I haave been using Gentoo on my old Dell laptop for over 2 years. Having said that, this looks like a fair review to me. Let's look at the criticisms:

1. WiFi support is iffy.
2. Power management is not great.
3. Keyboard is fair, but not great.
4. Problems with touchpad performance and middle button.
5. Feature buttons don't work as advertised.
6. ATI video performance suffers in Linux.
7. Battery life poor.

Now, remember that this is supposed to be a configured system. The point is not whether you can fix these things by configuring Gentoo. The point is that if you are paying LinuxCertified for this laptop with Linux already installed, the expectation is that it should work out of the box.

As far as "the reviewers lack of sense of what Linux laptops are really used for," I don't see how power management, Wifi, keyboard, touchpad, video, and battery issues could _not_ affect your work on a laptop.